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According to the latest list of popular brands in the third quarter released by fashion search engine Lyst, Balenciaga jumped to the top from sixth place in the second quarter, Gucci jumped to the top, while Gucci fell to second place, and Dior ranked third.
Demna Gvasalia was appointed as the artistic director of Balenciaga in October 2015. In just six years, it has brought a new look to the old fashion house Balenciaga. People are beginning to wonder what Gvasalia has done to Balenciaga in the past six years?
Show innovation
Since joining Balenciaga, Demna Gvasalia, which has always been uncommon, has been exploring the form and significance of fashion release. Habiting the combination of creativity and thinking about social issues, he has brought about one performance art that will surely be recorded in fashion history.
This year's Balenciaga 2022 spring and summer series show, Demna Gvasalia did not continue the traditional catwalk show, but divided the show into two parts.
The first part is the "movie premiere" on the Hollywood -style red carpet. Unlike the previous red carpet, Balenciaga made celebrities a model showing off their clothes, models became celebrities on the red carpet, and the fourth wall between performers and viewers was completely broken. In the second part, the models and guests sat in the theater together to watch the animated short film full of Balenciaga-style ironic humor created by Balenciaga and the well-known American animation "The Simpsons". The short film uses the story of the residents of small towns to realize their fashion dreams, and sharply satirizes the so-called fashion world in the fashion circle.
This big show has attracted a lot of media attention as soon as it was launched, and colleagues in the fashion circle are communicating and sharing it. The short film Simpsons and Balenciaga has been praised by 600,000 people on Tik Tok, and the brand ranks in the top four on Tik Tok luxury brands, and its popularity has not diminished for half a month.
In April this year, a joint collaboration between Balenciaga and Gucci exploded in the fashion circle like a bombshell. This big show is also known as the joint ceiling of "Luxury X Luxury" so far.
This joint not only drove the sales and popularity of the two brands, but also increased the possibility of cooperation between major old fashion houses in the future, including the subsequent joint cooperation between Fendi and Versace, GUCCI and COMME des GARÇONS SEOUL, etc., which shows its influence.
022's early spring series, Gvasalia directly brought us a virtual show with fake and real.
When everything can be digitalized and virtualized, fashion presentation seems to have encountered new challenges. Gvasalia, which is at the forefront of the times, has begun to explore the issue of "virtual" from the ideological and deeper logical levels, while pushing "virtualization" to a broader dimension.
Return to high-quality customization
High-quality customization has always been an important cornerstone of Balenciaga, the old fashion house. However, since the founder Cristóbal Balenciaga closed his fashion house in 1968, Balenciaga has not entered the field of high-quality customization for 53 years.
At the beginning of last year, Balenciaga announced the restart of its high-end customization business, which is a new milestone in the brand's history. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the first haute couture series produced by Demna Gvasalia was delayed by one year before it was officially unveiled.
Earlier Demna Gvasalia said: "Since I joined the fashion house, I have always had the idea of restarting the haute couture, but I always felt that I was not ready yet, until now. I have always been looking at the haute couture of the past Cristóbal era, trying to feel the beauty, architecture and the curves of the human body.In my direction, Haute Couture will not be a replica of his past works, but a modern interpretation. "
For brands, they will return to the high-end customs field in 53 years. This time, they will inevitably regain the glorious history of Balenciaga in high-end customs. Cristobal Balenciaga is very good at customizing women's clothing. Nowadays, many of Balenciaga's tailoring and silhouette inspirations and quotes will also use his classic works as references from time to time.
Now Balenciaga wants to return to high-end customs, and even use the established popularity of the brand to gain traffic and set off a trend in the high-end customs field. This is not only a possibility to continue the historical spirit of the brand, but also a great opportunity to create a comprehensive image to open up new markets.
This time the haute couture series Balenciaga has displayed a total of 63 sets of styles, including exquisite dresses that meet people's impression of haute couture tradition. They are the same as Cristóbal There are perceived connections in Balenciaga's works, such as the last minimalist wedding dress is a direct tribute to the classic works of the brand founder.
is full of dramatic hats, luxurious fabric T-shirts, gorgeous floral embroidery, and even jeans appear in the series.
Demna Gvasalia's biggest change in this extraordinary series is not the rebirth of the usual subcultural style and underground and street aesthetics, but the new improvement of the inclusion of the new generation of consumers. Although Cristóbal is used in the details Some elements and styles commonly used by Balenciaga, , but overall it injects new attraction and attitude into high-end fashion, presenting a younger, "daily version" high-end custom.
Kering Group also attaches great importance to this high-end custom series. LVMH has wanted to play the high-end custom card through Fendi in recent years, trying to use Kim Jones' influence to allow Fendi's high-end customization to station twice a year high-end customization schedule.
And among the designers whose Kering Group can compete with Kim Jones, Demna Gvasalia is undoubtedly the best choice to trigger trends and high-end fashion shocks and attention. At the same time, it is only legitimate to rewrite Balenciaga's history of haute couture.
Under the influence of trends in high-end fashion and degenerative trends, Gvasalia chose to combine "modernization" with traditional high-end customs, which also helped him deliver a full-scoring answer for Balenciaga for 53 years.
"hot product" manufacturing machine
"hot product" is a word that has been around Balenciaga in recent years. In the past few years since became the brand, Demna Gvasalia has continued to produce various popular items including dad shoes, socks, triangle bags, and hourglass bags. Whether it is Dad Shoes, who is paired with everyone at the peak or Jackets who are full of Fashion Icons, they can be called deeply rooted in people's hearts.
This year, Balenciaga continues the myth of creating hot products. Of course, to create hot products, you need to go to the daily activities that the public loves, likes and does the most frequently, so that you can grasp the public's psychology.
Balenciaga has launched a limited "Luminous Elf Series" item. In addition to the main luminous series accessories, it also launched the Neo Classic old version of Neo Classic Used handbags that continue the design of a popular motorcycle bag, as well as heavyweight items such as Track Muller sneakers and hiking boots that are popular all over the world.
Under the leadership of Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga reflects the current era. More and more new generation consumers are keen on buying Balenciaga single products. Although many people are still in a state of not understanding this brand, this brand of "subculture" manufacturing machine output by has captured the hearts of many generations of Z.
Balenciaga's business performance will certainly not disappoint. Kering Group CEO Franois-Henri Pinault once pointed out at a financial report meeting that it is the fastest growing brand in the group.In 2019, the annual revenue of Balenciaga exceeded the 1 billion euro threshold for the first time, officially joining the "billion club" in the fashion industry.
Keiyun Group's third-quarter financial report shows that Balenciaga is still one of the fastest growing brands and is still expanding.
It has to be said that Balenciaga's commercial success is on the one hand due to Gvasalia's precise grasp of youth culture. He may know better than anyone else what fashion is really longing for contemporary youth; on the other hand, 's extraordinary attitude, daring to give up the past, embracing the present and the future is also an important reason for Gvasalia's commercial success.
Celebrity effect
At present, influential celebrities are increasingly favored by big brands and designers . It can not only drive the attention of single products with its own fashion, but can even directly participate in the design, inject new vitality into the series of many traditional brands, and become the inspiration muse of fashion brands and designers.
According to the Lyst index, Balenciaga replaced Gucci as the hottest brand in the third quarter of 2021, with search volume soaring by 505%. Many of the brand’s popularity this year are from the former couple Ye (Kanye West) and Kim Kardashian.
Kanye West and Demna Gvasalia can be traced back to Gvasalia was still in the founding of Vetements, and a person familiar with the matter said that Demna Gvasalia had participated in the release of Kanye West Yeezy Season 1.
At the Balenciaga haute couture series show in July this year, Kanye West went to support the show in the Balenciaga series.
This year, three auditions held to warm up the new album "DONDA", pushed Kanye West to the peak of the topic again. Demna Gvasalia was the art director of all three auditions. The "masked fashion" led by Kanye actually became the most prominent factor in the three auditions.
Although everyone is familiar with Kanye West's good at creating topics, when Kim Kardashian, who entered the divorce program with Kanye West, appeared on his face and wearing a Balenciaga wedding dress at the end of the third audition, it instantly gathered the attention of all the media.
As an important part of this moment, this Balenciaga autumn 2021 haute couture wedding dress has once again become the focus of the topic.
Demna Gvasalia himself and Kim Kardashian attended this year's Met Gala, making a lot of gimmicks.
No matter what the relationship between Kanye and Kim is now, the two are still using their super high topic and influence to enhance Balenciaga's brand awareness.
Kanye West is a powerful force that most luxury fashion brands cannot control and are still afraid of, but are amazingly powerful, while Balenciaga uses this power very well, and the final effect is obvious to all.
disruptive cooperation
In September this year, Balenciaga announced a cooperation with Epic Games called "Balenciaga X Fortnite" . The collision of two brands in different industries combines the physical and digital worlds, bringing fashion products to the meta-universe of Fortnite, giving players a completely immersive experience.
"Fortnite" is an online game developed by Epic Games. Currently, the global player base has reached an astonishing 350 million. Rather than being a game, it has actually become a cultural phenomenon of .
Travis Scott, Marshmello and Ariana Grande have all held concerts in Fortnite, providing fans with a special form of music experience and providing singers with a new way to connect with their fan base.
In this collaboration, in order to design more vivid and detailed clothing, the designer conducted 3D scans of the characters in the series, from fabric to texture, and the performance of digital clothing in the role, everything was taken into account. The joint brand is divided into virtual game clothing and limited-time clothing. In Fortnite games, players can go to the game mall to purchase.
And once Balenciaga launched the capsule series of sweatshirts, T-shirts, , baseball caps and other items, many of them were sold out.
Demna Gvasalia was inspired by the huge influence of Unreal and Fortnite. When Generation Z became the main consumer group of luxury goods, seizing every opportunity to create a lasting impression of the brand in front of Generation Z customers has become the key to Balenciaga's increasing popularity.
Through these six years of getting along, I believe that Kering Group and Demna Gvasalia have known each other well enough. The marketing activities and cross-border collaborations that have been out of the circle have made Balenciaga impact our vision again and again. Faced with the increasingly picky fashion spectators and consumers, most brands are in a dilemma of getting out of the circle, and Demna Gvasalia and Balenciaga have brought us enough surprises time and time again.
In the hands of Demna GvasaliaGvasalia, Balenciaga has been steadily moving forward on the road of pursuing and reshaping its own characteristics. This year's performance once again reflects the brand's excellent understanding of youth culture and further consolidates Balenciaga's fashion label belonging to Generation Z. But if Balenciaga wants to "stay young, stay fabulous", the designer must be able to constantly subvert the world he created with a deconstruction and reshaping perspective. For Balenciaga, whose brand characteristics have been shaped so clearly, its enemy will not be any other brand, but how to surpass the previous one and always maintain a freshness in the eyes of young people.
